


Throughout Eternity

by sorcererinslytherin



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Freewood - Freeform, Immortal Fake AH Crew, M/M, MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH (TEMP), dying and then coming back again over and over
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:28:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21820204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorcererinslytherin/pseuds/sorcererinslytherin
Summary: For RT Writing's Community Secret Santa!"Who are you? Death?" "Sometimes. But not today."When you find yourself immortal and adrift, even an enemy can start to look like a friend. When you continue to find each other across the countless decades, it becomes a race to be the only one still standing. Los Santos is a battleground for two immortal forces. But does it have to be?Enemies-to-lovers. FAHC/GTA-verse (loosely).
Relationships: Gavin Free/Ryan Haywood
Comments: 2
Kudos: 62





	Throughout Eternity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [signifier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/signifier/gifts).



> Secret Santa fic for the lovely Courtney on the RT Writer's Discord. I hope you enjoy! Full prompts:
> 
> GTA-verse / enemies-to-lovers  
> "Who are you? Death?" "Sometimes, but not today."  
> "No Questions, just Drive."
> 
> Had a lot of fun crafting this!

The first time they meet eyes are from the opposite side of a shitty speak-easy. It’s 1910, the height of the Prohibition era, and they’re in opposing gangs trying to sell bootleg liquor to this shitty bar. They know it’s going to kick off before its even begun. Ryan - grimy, greasy, the hood covering his hair only doing so much to keep people from seeing his face - takes a quick swig of the rancid whiskey on the table in front of him. It burns down his throat.

Right. He doesn’t like whiskey. He hasn’t been back too long and he had thought maybe this life his tastes would change, but it doesn’t seem like it.

He eyes the person at the other end of the bar and his eyes narrow. However the other man got there - and is he going as he this life? One never knew with the blonde across the bar. He could ask, but the last time he dared open his mouth with that man near him, the ass had literally put a bullet in it and splattered his brains across the back of the brick wall behind him. Besides, he was looking like he was already prepping for a fight. He knew the tenseness in the other’s arms anywhere, the curve of his fingers by his side that he knew was him reaching for a weapon.

In years past, it was a sword and then a knife and now it was one of those newfangled six-shooters. He envied the man. Maybe he'd kill the other for it. Wouldn’t that be a laugh... living life without the other one around for the first time in like... 600 years.

Has it been that long? Fuck. A long time to have a shadow. A slender shadow of a man that would slit his throat so much as look at him. Honestly, he’d do the same, though, so it was better not to talk. Only one immortal could grace this city at any one time. Was always a race to do the other in.

This time, it was quick. Ryan had hardly finished his glass of whiskey before someone had blasted off a sharp crack of the gun, shattering the glass and then the chest of the man in front of the both of them. The mafia, booze-running crews of bloodstained LS hardly stayed peaceful for long.

When offense was made to one man - in this case, the most permanent offense - all of them had to get involved. Bullets flew with ear-cracking blasts. Ryan always preferred the knife and cut down three or four before making it to Him. 

“Who are you this time?” Gavin asks, his voice smooth as silk, his gaze cutting. His eyebrow raises curiously when he looks Ryan up and down, and for some reason, Ryan feels he has to bite back the desire to kiss him. Damn, he needed to reevaluate his priorities. This wasn’t really his normal thought when he saw the other man - normally it was more “grab his weapons and get ready to fight”, but he had to admit, somewhere deep inside him he liked seeing the other across from him. “Death?”

In 600 years, it wasn’t like you could keep any friends. A constant enemy was still a familiar presence. Comforting, somehow.

“Sometimes,” he hums, showing his teeth. Sharp, this time. Very white. Gavin raises an eyebrow, knowing how many times he has killed him. He’s almost always death. But Ryan twists aside just as he sees his crewmate lift his six shooter. “But not today.”

A perfect red hole appears in the center of the blond’s forehead, mussing his perfectly coiffed hair. His crewmate cheers, but Gavin is only able to get out a shocked gasp before the back of his head explodes and he slumps to the ground.

Ryan sighs. What a waste. His next life would be boring now without their games. He almost feels a tinge of ... regret.

Fuck that. Violently pushing the feeling away, he spits on Gavin’s body. “Better luck next time, Pretty boy,” he hums and strides away. Not even wounded.

LS shone a little less bright without that Golden Boy in it.

**  
Gavin sees Ryan as a phantom the next time they run into each other. Something kept him in Los Santos this life. Perhaps because he had heard rumors of a sandy-haired villain roaming the streets. The Vagabond, they called him. Humorous. He was so much more violent than the homeless that also gained that title. But perhaps he was a bit of a vagrant. 

The war was on this time. It was sometime in 1940, he had lost count as the years trickled by. He’d been alive a long while now. He considered enlisting, but he was never much of a good guy dying for other people. And it seemed so ... messy. So he stayed in LS. So must have Ryan, because when they crossed paths again, he had a rifle across his shoulder and a feral smile on his face.

God, Gavin couldn’t help but think - he really shouldn’t get so turned on by that smile. Ryan was such a rogue. But his face did light up when he saw Gavin, which was nice, even if it was likely in malice. The thing was, he may be a bit ... lonely? It’s not surprising that was the case, as being immortal meant he outlived every meaningful relationship he ever had, but still. He may kill Ryan as often he killed him, but at least they were a constant.

“Free,” Ryan hums as he approaches Gavin from across the grimy street, lowering his rifle and leaning on it a bit. Is he posturing? Interesting. “Didn’t take you for someone who would skip out on a war.” 

Gavin shrugs a bit, a smirk growing on his face. “Couldn’t quite support the idea of people senselessly murdering each other for other reasons besides how pretty I am. Had enough of that, you know?”

Ryan did know, could hear the underlying exhaustion under the flirt. It was quiet for a moment as they stared at each other under the light of the flickering street lamp. “You gettin’ on alright?” he finally asks Gavin. It’s a bit strained. Like he knows how this is going to end - both of them really couldn’t exist in the same city at the same time, one had to die and come back somewhere else - but he didn’t want to be the one to pull the trigger this time. Strange. Gav rarely get hesitation from the dealer of death himself. 

“Yeah,” he finally sighs back, holding out his hand for a cigarette as he saw him lighting one. Ryan takes a few drags of his own, coughs, and then passes it over. They spend a few minutes smoking together, the carbon in their lungs burning, not doing any damage that would last past their next respawn. Their lives too violent, too bright, to be killed by anything as meaningless as cancer.

Gavin finally throws the butt of the cig on the ground, grinding it into the dirt with the heel of his immaculate boot. “Why do we keep doing this dance?” he asks gruffly, shoving his hands in his pockets. “We could just stay here in peace. Together.”  
But even as he says it, he’s pulling his little gold knife out of his pocket. The Vagabond doesn’t seem to notice. Good.

“This city’s not big enough for two immortals, Goldie,” Ryan says lazily, still leaning on that blasted rifle, looking out over a street empty of sins. For now, at least. “You could just give it over to me. It’s rightfully mine.”

“It’s rightfully no one’s,” Gavin spits back pointedly, nearly cutting his finger on the blade in his pocket. “But if it’s going to be anyone’s, it’s going to be mine.”

In the next breath, Ryan’s bleeding on the ground, not expecting Gavin’s knife to penetrate the side of his throat. He gapes at Gavin wordlessly for a moment, blood bubbling into his mouth as his knees buckle. “Prick,” he manages to rasp. “We were havin’ a moment.”

“We always have moments,” Gavin replies smoothly, wiping his blade on a white handkerchief and watching him die. “Moments are all we ever have.”

***

Ryan didn’t know why they always killed each other. They were really natural enemies, constantly finding each other on other ends of whatever affiliations they had allied themselves with. But when the sixties rolled around and they were all shooting up drugs in shitty alleyways and love was freer than it was and sex was open to all genders and rampant in dirty clubs across the underground social scene, he ... started to miss those golden sunglasses and cheeky ass smile.

Immortality - the way they had it, constantly dying and coming back in a weird mockery of a mortal’s existence - lead one to dream bigger. They could rule cities, rule the world. The only other opponent to living a lavish life of luxury, unopposed forever, was the other one of them. And Free was the only other person he ever knew who was like him. Immortals didn’t tend to advertise their presence, really. But he kept being drawn to Gavin’s flickering light like a moth to a flame, something bringing them back together. Fate? He didn’t believe in the shit, but maybe.

He kept replaying their last meeting whenever he shot up - that is, whenever the drugs left him enough of his mind to think at all. Whenever he laid with some strange man or woman in the back of a bar or in his shithole apartment, just trying to get a glimpse of that bliss that life was supposed to give them.

Did he have a wife this go-round? A hidden husband? Did he dare? Ryan certainly didn’t do more than hook-up anymore, preferring men over woman and the quick bliss in the back of a bar over any serious romances. He had his heart broken too many times. But Gavin was gone this time, hadn’t turned up in over twenty years. Maybe he was actually taking his advice and left after he shanked him, his blood all over his patent-leather shoes. But there was no reason. Gavin could have moved in and used that pretty voice of his to make an empire for himself in the year or so it took Ryan to respawn and gather his strength again. Dying wasn’t easy and there was always a grace period in their feuds. 

Gavin lives constantly in his mind for the new few years, so when the man in question flies up next to him on the side of the road in the middle of LS, blond hair mussed so prettily from the wind coming through the rolled down window of his bright gold car, and barks “no questions, just drive” as he moves into the passenger seat, Ryan immediately does as Gavin asks.

They drive quickly through the city both of them knew like the back of their hands, the city they had spent years fighting for the right to rule, the city they wanted to own. Gavin every once in a while takes pot shots at black cars that follow them. Ryan knows better than to press, waiting until they had evaded the notice of the last one and barreled out into the hills of the Sandy Shores outside the city before finally slowing and turning to the other, a crazed look in his ancient eyes. “What the fuck was that about?”

“Negotiation went bad,” Gavin shrugs, focusing on reloading his pistol. “What, are you going to scold me? I’m not in the mood, Haywood.”

“No,” he says quickly. “I just - “ He coughs, trying not to say he was even remotely worried about the smaller man. He was so slight, Ryan was starting to realize that. Could be so easily snapped in half. They couldn’t die for long, but could suffer. Badly. And a man with that frame was so easy to make hurt. “You coulda just let them kill you.”

“What?” Gavin says, and flicks him a feral grin that doesn’t quite make it to his eyes. “And let you win? Babe, please, I don’t go down that easy. And you hopped in this car pretty quick when I could have rigged it to blow.”

“I - “ Ryan was momentarily lost for words, coughing again to cover the silence. “Haven’t had a good car chase for a few decades. Figured it was time.”

“Sure,” Gavin purrs, as if he had caught him. Ryan was the Vagabond, killer of a hundred men, and he certainly didn’t turn pink when Gavin caught him maybe wanting to spend time with him.

He directs the car into a gas station and makes to climb out, but Gavin reaches over and grabs his hand, grip strong despite his slender bones. “Ryan.” There’s a poignant pause and he raises his eyebrow. “Yeah?”

Gavin doesn’t hesitate. He yanks Ryan’s arm back so the other man topples back into the driver’s seat and suddenly Gavin’s climbing partially over the center console to kiss him, chaste at first and then quickly not, the passion of the decade of free love and freer sex infecting him as Gavin grabs Ryan’s face and kisses him desperately. He doesn’t want him, not really - frankly, Gavin doesn’t quite know what to make of this man he had always thought of as an enemy until quite recently - but wanting someone who understood in a way no one else did. Understood the weight of the centuries that weighed down on his shoulders until he felt burned and suffocated by them.

And Ryan... well. Before he can think, he’s pulling Gavin onto his lap, squishing his slender frame between the wheel of the car and his own chest, and he’s kissing Gav like he can dump his own problems into the other’s body just through the act of kissing. This wasn’t love, not really. Not for either of them. This was primal connection between two men who understood loss, understood isolation, understood finding each other in ways the other never could.

When they break apart, wild-eyed and breathing hard, Ryan’s trembling a bit. His eyes are sharp, staring at this demon with gold glasses instead of eyes, grinning down at him. 

“Hey, Haywood,” Gavin purrs, running his hand across Ryan’s neck as he shivers beneath him. There’s something wrong in his eyes though, the parts Ryan can see under the dangling glasses slipped down on his nose. He looks almost... sad. Regretful. “You’re a very beautiful man. Did you know that?”

“Yes,” Ryan replies cheekily, smirking a bit and wanting to kiss the sorrow out of his eyes. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

He’s unprepared when the knife plunges into his chest.

“Sorry,” Gavin whispers as Ryan chokes, slowly pushing his glasses up to cover his eyes, knowing he couldn’t hide the regret in them. Hiding behind his lenses like usual. “This was.... a bad idea.” Blood leaks onto Ryan’s shirt as he gazes at the stone-faced figure above him, having gone from a creature of lust and perhaps love to some sort of unfeeling demon. Gavin notices a brief flash of .... betrayal in Ryan’s eyes before the light goes out of them and he goes limp.

A pity. Gavin hates how much it hurts.

Quickly, he bundles the body into the back seat, takes the wheel, and tries not to glorify exploiting Ryan’s moment of weakness.

For what it’s worth, Ryan’s a very good kisser.

***

They avoid each other after that. At least for a while. Generations pass and they live lives that don’t involve each other. Crews take and lose control of the city and they continue living their lives of malice and general mischief. But something’s not right. Ryan’s more... empty.

He kills more. He doesn’t think about it. Mortal’s lives are so useless in terms of theirs. But not seeing him - the feeling of the knife in his heart constantly replays in his dreams, knowing the taste of blood hot and salty in his mouth masking the sweet taste of Gavin’s lips - makes it all the more hard.

It shouldn’t hurt him as much as it did. That Gavin killed him. They’d always killed each other, that’s what they did, their endless dance. Kissing the blond-haired menace had been a moment of idiotic weakness, but Ryan had to admit, he liked it. Had, just for the briefest of flashes, considered a life where they could find each other again. Maybe not be together, but find each other when the pain was the worst. To share that emotion and each other. Someone they didn’t have to fight against but rather could join together with.

And then it was gone with a knife in his heart.

The thing was, Gavin had glimpsed that future too, he knew it. So when the other avoided him for nearly fifty years, he started to think maybe they weren’t going to run into each other again. That Gavin was scared of what he had felt in that kiss. Maybe he truly had left the city for good this time. Ryan certainly did, for a time. But they always came back.

For some reason, LS was their stomping grounds. They couldn’t leave it entirely.

Which was why, when he was brought in as the masked killer in front of a mortal who had somehow warped the City of Sin around his little finger, he was floored to see Gavin standing at the man’s right side. The way they presented themselves was military. But the way Gavin looked at him behind the mask was anything but.

He didn’t hear the tattooed man explain his crew, this “Fake” game that meant nothing to him. He could only see the apology in Gavin’s posture, in the way his hands kept picking at the hem of his coat. When the tattooed gang leader mentioned that Gavin had personally recommended him, Ryan knew this was it.

Gavin wanted to work with him. Not against him. Two immortals on one team. He wondered if the leader has any knowledge of just how much power he may achieve with this acquisition.

“I want to talk,” Ryan finally drolls out, pointing directly at Gavin. “With you. Alone. For fucks’ sake, no weapons.” He makes a show of putting down his gun. “You owe me that.”

The leader raises an eyebrow - apparently, their sordid history has not been conveyed to him - but he waves his hand. “Yeah, go ahead.”

And Gavin... seeing Ryan, seeing how he looks nearly exactly the same despite the years that had gone by, knows he owes him this. Knew this conversation was coming the moment he had recommended Ryan to Geoff. Knew they needed to finish this once and for all, figure out if they would always hate each other or if there was a chance for ... something more.

Gavin leads him to a door and Ryan follows, knowing that this could be another death. Roof access. They climb in silence until they arrive on top of the building, looking out on the clear night across all the twinkling lights of the city that meant so much to both of them.

“I remember when it was still covered in smog back in the industrial revolution,” Ryan says stiffly, breaking the silence for a moment before sighing and sitting down on the edge of the roof, his legs swinging out into the air. Gavin hesitates a moment, unsure if the other wants him to join. It was a moment of surrender - Gavin could push him off and be done with it - but instead Ryan just pats the roof next to him to invite Gavin to sit.

The other hesitantly does so, ignoring the grime on his $200 jeans, fully expecting Ryan to snap and plunge a knife into hopefully his heart or another more painful body part. It would be regrettable - he liked Geoff and what the mortal was planning. But Gavin would understand Ryan’s need to do it all the same.

“Why did you call me here?” Ryan asks quietly. Roughly. Gavin winces at the pain in the other’s voice, taking his glasses off so he could fiddle with something in his hands. “You made it quite clear we shouldn’t interact after killing me and disappearing for nearly fifty goddamn years.”

“We’ve constantly killed each other, Ryan, don’t make it into a bigger thing than it was,” Gavin quips, but inwardly knows that wasn’t the case. Gavin had stabbed him - spooked - after a kiss that he initiated. Their first and only kiss. A kiss that had meant something, meant something more than whatever mortals get out of it. He had exploited his weakness for a pretty face but hadn’t expected to actually feel something from it. Feel as powerfully - as hungrily - as he did. 

Ryan doesn’t say anything to that, just looks out over the city, waiting for Gavin to respond. He finally sighs. “I -- missed you,” he mutters. “Didn’t think I would, really, but turns out life isn’t life, for me at least, without you in it.”

There. He said it, pushing aside the easy quips for something genuine for the first time in a long fucking time. Silence descends for a long moment and Gavin has a few moments to think he had royally screwed it up now before Ryan yanks him close again, kissing the smaller man deeper than last time, more than they did before, holding him against his body like he never wanted to let Gavin go. 

Gavin could pull away - he knew when a man was holding him to keep and this wasn’t that - but he doesn’t. God, he doesn’t. Ryan’s hands are on his face and messing up his hair but he doesn’t care because Ryan doesn’t have a knife. He was opening himself up yet again to be killed by Gavin. But his kiss was greedy, demanding, like he felt he deserved this.

Frankly, he did. Dropping his thousand dollar gold shades onto the cool stone, Gavin surges to wrap his arms around the other greedily too. He knew Ryan deserved real affection from him and for the first time in his ridiculously long life, he was willing to give that to someone - to his rival - with no strings attached. When Ryan pushes Gavin back so his back is on the edge of that shitty rooftop, knowing one wrong move would send them flying twenty stories to hit the ground below, he just pulls the masked mercenary closer. And Ryan kisses him breathlessly, taking all he can from Gavin without ever breaching the unspoken boundary they had put up.

When they pull apart, Gavin’s dizzied. He blinks at Ryan, licking his sore lips, breathing hard. “You still feel that way?”

Ryan just shrugs languidly, sitting back, rubbing the spit off of his face with the back of his hand. “You are the only other one who gets it. I can’t get you off my mind. I don’t know if this is love, but it’s something.” He says it so matter-a-fact. “I’d like to see if it can become more.”

Gavin just smiles at him, chuckling as he pulls his glasses back on. “Ryan Haywood, you’ve always been an idiot.” But he does pull his golden knife out of his pocket - the one he killed Ryan with last time - and lets it fall off the side of the building. They both watch it glitter as it falls. “But a good idiot.”

He yanks Ryan into another kiss. As they do so, Ryan knows one thing. He’s got a flighty immortal being in his arms. He could never ask for complete faithfulness. But they have a chance for something really, really good.

And they had an eternity to get it right.


End file.
